You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Getting Tased on Purpose. Allowing 50,000 volts to inject itself into your neural net like an electric eel taking liberties with you is a highly questionable act.
I was doing a story today with my local sheriff’s department.
The theme; just the sight of a Taser can stop crime.
The Captain over patrol shows me a video of a guy wandering around on the interstate.
This nut job his high on nose candy and he’s dancing with paranoid demons only he can see. He is on a cell phone, reportedly calling 911 on himself, reporting someone is chasing him down the interstate.
The guy is a fruit loop.
The Captain tells me he is higher than Steven Tyler at an American Idol tryout with an open bar.
The video shows the deputies trying to subdue this cracker jack.
One law man grabs the guy around the neck. Another officer grabs a shoulder. A third officer joins in. Still the narcotic filled crazy man fights them with a super human type strength.
Then a 4th officer approaches, leans in close to the crazy man and shouts one word: TASER
The officer grabs his Taser, packing 50,000 volts, and aims it right at the crazy man.
19 seconds of wrestling with three cops to no avail and one word from a law officer stops this perp in his trax.
The wild man submits immediately saying; “I’m getting down, I’m getting down.”
The lesson here: Sometimes just showing a Taser is enough to stop a violent confrontation.
Whenever I do Taser stories, I inevitably hear; “Hey Cordan, you want to get Tased.”
Ha Ha Ha.
I always laugh confidently and say; “been there. Done that.”
Their faces always show surprise.
Really?
Yep.
It was 2003. I was doing a story in Columbia, Tennessee about the department getting its first Tasers.
So of course, the guys ask me if I want to try it.
I’ve been dared to jump off the roof of a 2 story building into a 7 foot pool. Did it.
I’ve been dared to eat glass. Happy 21st birthday.
I’ve been dared to drive 125 miles an hour on a dark Mexican highway patrolled by crooked Federales. Can anyone say Schultz?
I seldom back down from a challenge.
“You want to Tase me? Fire it up.”
And from there it became an ordeal.
Word spread through the Columbia police complex that the crazy newsman was going to let cops shoot him with electricity.
They snickered occasionally, but mostly they were professional as they instructed me on what would happen and how I might feel.
I was nervous, but I figured, it didn’t kill the other guys in this room and I’m as tough as them.
Next thing I know I’m being held by each shoulder and my back is to the instructor.
“Ok, you ready.”
I am nervous. I am unsure what this is going to feel like. I imagine juggling chain saws set on fire. I imagine a porcupine sneaking up my ass. I imagine french kissing the business end of a power drill. All of it seems like I’m in for a bumpy ride.
“Yep,” is all I can muster.
“Taser! Taser,” the instructor shouts.
That’s universal code for “hold on to your stones boy, cause here it comes.”
ZAPPPP!
I am lit up like a ball of tin foil in a microwave.
I feel every muscle in my body tighten.
The pain is overwhelming like making love in a cactus patch.
I involuntarily scream like a little girl.
“OOOOOOWWWWWWW”
The men hold on to me as I keep my feet.
The blast is only a few seconds. It passes quickly. I am relieved when it is over.
“Oh my God,” I blurt out as I regain my senses. “That is F***ing insane.”
My fingers are still curled like I got the palsy. I am cramping like an iron man participant whose water bottle is filled with sand.
I have had some people who get Tased tell me that they are encouraged to empty their bladder and their bowels prior to getting zapped. I see why. A reporter screaming and soiling a diaper would be extraordinarily embarrassing.
That story aired in 2003. I don’t look dramatically different and I am sure, even though I put a super on the video, people will think I was just recently Tased.
I got this text from a friend and hard core That’s Crazy Fan. Former Public Safety Commissioner Billy Weeks writes; “I had a lady call and tell me hurry and turn on the news. Cordan is getting Tazed. I was out on my bike and just shook my head. Yep that’s him.”
Thanks for watching Billy.
I am glad I got Tased once. To get Tased a 2nd time would only confirm what most people all ready think; that I have a screw loose.
So do Tasers work? I would say yes, sometimes without ever pulling the trigger. Even crazy people don’t want the equivalent of a swarm of bees flying up their pants leg.
And that is crazy.™